The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III is an upcoming role-playing video game by developers Nihon Falcom and Vicarious Visions and publisher Activision. It is the thirteenth separate entry in Falcom's long-running The Legend of Heroes, and a direct sequel to the prior two entries, Trails of Cold Steel and Trails of Cold Steel II. The game is scheduled for release on the PlayStation 4 video game console in September, 2017. No plans for an English region release have been announced. Gameplay The game is expected to play as a traditional JRPG with turn-based battles, similar to Trails of Cold Steel and Trails of Cold Steel II. An emphasis on speeding up battles is being made as well, including making transitions into battle scenes more seamless, and being able to map out more battle commands to specific buttons rather than various menus, though the battles will still be primarily menu-based. Story The game is a direct sequel to the prior two Trails of Cold Steel games, picking up one and a half years after the events of Trails of Cold Steel II. The story will be centered around main character Rean and the rest of his military school friends from the prior two entries, notably exploring subjects such as the mysterious origin's of Rean's birth, and what others have been up to since the events of the prior games. The game will also feature appearances from characters from Trails in the Sky, a separate meta series within The Legend of Heroes series, and a specific-yet-unrevealed character from Trails to Zero. Development Hans Zimmer returns to composed the score the video game Trails of Cold Steel III along with Lorne Balfe, Andrew Kawczynski, Steve Mazzaro, Jasha Klebe, Geoff Zanelli, Junkie XL, Richard Harvey and Paul Mounsey also returned to compose the additional music for the video game while the drummer Satnam Singh Ramgotra and the new composer Heitor Pereira joined Zimmer to compose the additional music for the video game. John Powell, who collaborated with Zimmer on the first two games, did not return for the third installment due to dropping out of the video game because of his work on Ferdinand. Intentions to create a third entry in the Trails of Cold Steel meta series were announced as early as December 2015, at Nihon Falcom's 2015 shareholder's meeting. Initial planning began in early 2016, though the development team was initially divided on which platforms the game should release on. On one hand, the PlayStation Vita was preferred, due to its larger user-base in Japan, and prior entries in the series being released there, but the team also wanted to consider using the much more powerful PlayStation 4, which could greatly help with the game's scope. Full-scale development on the title began around mid-2016. The game was officially revealed as a PlayStation 4 exclusive in December 2016, at Falcom's 2016 shareholder's meeting. Unlike the prior two entries, no Vita or PlayStation 3 versions will be developed. The game is scheduled for release in Japan in Q3 2017. While no official plans plans have been announced for an English language release, some websites reported that it was mentioned in the 2016 shareholder's meeting that a deciding factor in developing the game for the PS4 was to help ensure higher international sales for the game, with the PS4 having a much larger userbase in most countries outside of Japan as of 2016. Reception Pre-release After the positive reception of the first two Trails of Cold Steel entries, journalist were generally enthusiastic for the prospect of a third entry, though many lamented the lack of a Vita version of the game. External links * Official website Category:2017 video games Category:PlayStation 4 games Category:PlayStation 4-only games Category:Role-playing video games Category:The Legend of Heroes series Category:Politics in fiction